


that reaches to the sky forever

by Kells



Series: gifts, requests, and other little bits [8]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Female Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-07-15 01:37:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7200197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kells/pseuds/Kells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which ace reporter Steph Rogers tells her partner a massive lie (that she doesn't want to marry him) to avoid telling him a more massive truth (that she's also Captain America, an alien and superhero), and instantly regrets it. even Gotham feels the fall-out.<br/>(I wanted to do DC for a while so, you know. Super-Steph for Metropolis, Gotham gets Iron Man instead of Batman, and apparently Bucky is boy-Lois because, uh, he also has a hopeless and alliterative name I guess)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Let me guess,” Tony Stark drawled as the curtains rustled behind him. Instead of glancing reflexively towards the third-storey window, he poured himself another shot of whisky and took a careless sip. “You’ve run clean out of criminals in that utopia of yours, so now you need to borrow some of mine before the Planet shuts down without anything to report.”

Normally that would have won him at least a chuckle, however reproving- but America’s star-spangled sweetheart only shook her head soberly.

“Bucky asked me to marry him.”

Tony set his drink down with a heavy thud.

“Please tell me you didn’t say ‘no’ out of some misguided desire to protect him.”

She was already folding in on herself, arms wrapping around her torso as her shoulders shook.

“Oh no,” Tony muttered nervously. “Come on, get over here.”

The hug she let him drag her into was awkward to the point of being pretty funny, but there was nothing amusing about the sight of Steph Rogers- _Captain America-_ struggling not to cry as Iron Man did his utterly inadequate best to stand in for the young man she had apparently deliberately left behind.

“Don’t  _ever_ tell Hawkeye about this,” Tony ordered; this time, Steph managed something like a smile.

“I promise.”

“Thanks.”

In all the years he’d worked with her, watching their fledgling alliance of superheroes grow into a solid, self-sustaining network, Tony had never seen Cap look so totally, painfully vulnerable.

“Hey,” he ventured. “It’s not as bad as all that. Go home, okay? Get cleaned up, maybe, put one of those frocks on if it’ll make you feel better. Then go find your boy and tell him you’re sorry you screwed up. He’s been watching your back for, what, three years now?”

“Four in August,” Steph muttered, as Tony had known she would.

“Four in August,” he agreed readily. “So he knows better than anyone that even you make mistakes sometimes, right?”

Barnes did seem to get Steph out of as many scrapes as she did him, Tony meant, which was all the more impressive considering he was a soldier-turned- Pulitzer-winning reporter and she was _Captain America._

“You didn’t see his face,” Steph muttered. “He’s never going to speak to me again.”

Tony snorted.

“Of course he is.”

He pressed her gently into the nearest chair, struck again by the way a super-powered creature who would have been able to crush him with her bare hands if she chose could seem so very fragile in other ways. “You know as well as I do that that kid would forgive you on the spot if you walked right up to him and kicked him in the groin just to see what would happen.”

She had to look away; Tony watched her watch her own hands clench into fists.

“That’s the trouble, isn’t it?”

Her voice was heavy with a desolation that seemed entirely out of sync with everything he knew about either Captain America _or_ Steph Rogers. “I can’t marry him if I won’t be honest with him, right, and- I mean- I can’t tell him the truth about _this_ , can I?”

In some ways, Tony thought it was more surprising that she hadn’t cracked and told Barnes everything years before they ever reached that point.

“Remind me again why not?”

“He would die,” she whispered, haunted by too many of the nightmares Tony himself had all too often too. “They’d come for him, or eventually he’d decide I was in trouble and do something insane-”

She cut herself off with a gasp, but tried again in a quieter voice.

“How can I let him take that kind of risk for me?”

Tony sighed.

“I hate to tell you this, but he’s not going to wait for you to _let_ him.”

She raised her eyes, startled and defiant, but waited for him to explain. Tony kept his eyes firmly on his shot glass as he did.

“Look, if I learnt one thing from the whole, you know. Pepper…thing.”

He took a stabilizing breath of his own, oddly glad that he couldn’t see the sympathetic expression he was imagining anyway. “It’s that too much of the time it’s not our call.”

“But-“

“No,” he countered before she could argue. “You’re all worked up imagining what he might do for Captain America once he knows that’s you, right?”

“Not what he _might_ do, what he-“

“What he’s absolutely guaranteed to do, then, okay? But what about what he’s sure to do to protect Steph Rogers while he _doesn’t_ know you’re also Captain America?”

It was plainly obvious from her wide-eyed silence that Steph had never thought of that. Tony nodded sharply, agreeing with himself.

“You two get into enough scraps chasing HYDRA down those corporate rabbit holes of theirs, right? You can’t tell me he’s more likely to do something you can’t fix for Captain America than for his own partner, who as far as he knows is a lot less invulnerable to speeding bullets than your mutual friend.”

She frowned, but her jaw and shoulders were set in the way that meant Cap was ready for a fight.

“That’s why I have to-“

“It’s not going to work, Steph.”

She paused, frustrated; Tony pressed on before it occurred to her to tell him to sit the hell down and stop interrupting her.

“Look. Trust a guy who’s been there, okay? You can turn him down if you’re not ready to trust him with this, or break up with him if you don’t think it’ll ever happen. If you’re really determined to go all the way with this you can come right out and tell him you never want to see him again, so he should go ahead and take that _Guardian_ job the next time they offer.”

He squeezed her shoulder, strangely moved by the unmixed horror in her brilliant eyes.

“That wasn’t a suggestion, I’m just saying you can’t _make_ him stop caring about you, you know, no matter how much you hurt him in the attempt.”

“Might be better if I could,” Steph muttered through gritted teeth. The martyr’s determination on her face was an expression Tony hadn’t seen in years. She’d looked like that as a teenager, he thought, when they’d been starting out, and she hadn’t quite learnt to live with the powers she had never asked for.

“You don’t really believe that.”

Barnes would have agreed - even Tony, a whole city away most of the time, had been able to see from press conference to press conference how the brooding young man determined to get his story at any cost had changed and grown with something to live for that mattered more, and more immediately, than yet another accolade.

“No,” Steph murmured, because of course Captain America always told the truth, never mind what it cost her. “I don’t.”

She worried her lip like a nervous schoolgirl.

“You really think I should tell him?”

Tony nodded slowly.

“ _So_ many things will be less complicated.”

“But you still-”

She seemed to hear the question halfway through asking it- Steph went as far as to clap a hand over her mouth to stop the other half leaking out.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered. “Tony, of course you don’t have to tell me.”

He shook his head, touched by her distress on his behalf.

“We wanted different things, that’s all. That would’ve been true with or without, you know-“

He waved a hand to indicate the mechanical drawings he’d been poring over before she’d blown in with the evening breeze. “All the rest of it.”

“Is that what you call it,” Steph murmured, snarky enough to show that she was starting to feel like herself again.

“Yes,” Tony said decisively. “Now. Is there anything else you already know that you’d like me to tell you before you go stop that boy from moving to London to keep himself from inconveniencing you?”

He managed, more or less, not to laugh when she paled at the thought of it.

“He wouldn’t,” she whispered, mostly certain. Suddenly, she smiled- a real, break-of-dawn smile that was almost enough to convince Tony that he hadn’t totally botched a whole conversation mostly about _feelings._ “He won’t. I’m gonna tell him, and when he’s done yelling at me I’m gonna make him ask me again and this time I’ll get it right.”

“There you go,” Tony grinned. Steph was standing in a second; before he really knew what was happening she’d flung her arms around him and kissed his cheek like that was something normal people did, just like that, without even asking.

“Thanks, Tony. I’ll see you soon, okay?”

“Sure,” he grumbled, scrubbing at his cheek. “Unless your ex-sniper fiancé comes after me because you _kissed_ me.”

“He won’t,” she promised, perfectly sincere. “And if he does I’ll come get the bullet before we explain, okay? So you’re fine.”

That wasn't as reassuring as Steph seemed to think it was, but since she looked more like Tony thought she should than she had since she’d come in he contented himself with rolling his eyes extravagantly.

“Get out of here already. Come back when you have a ring, I want to laugh at how tiny the diamond is.”

“I might kick _you_ in the groin to see what happens,” Stephanie warned him quite light-heartedly. “See you around, Iron Man.”

And then she was gone, leaving Tony's day-curtains fluttering in her wake.

“Yeah,” Tony grinned, knocking back the drink he hadn’t really had time to think about. “See you, Cap.”


	2. Chapter 2

Steph left Tony’s sprawling mansion with every intention of speeding directly to the crumbling one-time tenement block Bucky called home, but her progress was stalled first by two separate industrial fires and then a near miss involving a high-speed train on an old suspension bridge. By the time she’d dealt with all that she had soot in her hair and engine muck on everything except her boots, and in any case Bucky would be back at work making sure the Daily Planet carried every detail of Captain America’s latest exploits.

Tomorrow, she decided, heaving a grateful sigh as her head hit her pillow. She’d see him bright and early, and if he’d been there all night she’d just have to make sure they got breakfast right after they got engaged.

The only trouble with that plan, Steph discovered the next morning, was that Bucky wasn’t _at_ the Planet when she got there. He’d put the required stories to bed like she’d assumed, Peter reported earnestly, but soon after that had taken a call on his cell phone and disappeared without so much as a “see ya, kid.”

That sounded like Bucky chasing a lead, all right, but Steph was almost sure he hadn’t been working on anything that didn’t involve her too.

“He’ll turn up,” Peggy Carter offered as she passed, raising an eyebrow at their bereft expressions. “Keep the faith, you two- we’ve done a day’s work without that young man before and we’ll do it again.”

Steph only had to duck out twice that day, and both times the incident was fairly close by and only moderate in scale. In Bucky’s absence she ended up reporting on both herself, which made her feel more than usually like a fraud, but she still made it home in time for a slow and thorough twilight patrol. She scrutinized every skeevy dive she remembered, just in case, then lingered over Bucky’s favourite haunts far longer than was logical. By the time she was back in her apartment- and her own clothes- Steph had to admit, at least to herself, that Bucky wasn’t in the city at all.

“Hey,” she murmured when his phone sent her straight through to voicemail for the third time in five minutes. “I know you’re a big boy and don’t need minding, but call me back when you get a chance, okay? I miss you.”

He didn’t, though, and when Steph got to work it was to find that Bucky had neither come back nor called anyone else, either.

“He’s fine,” Peggy promised staunchly, over and over as the week wore on. “He’ll check in when he can, you know what he’s like.”

Steph did know what he was like, and widened the radius of her late-night search accordingly, but try as she might she couldn’t make out either that longed-for voice or the heartbeat she knew better than her own.

“Bucky,” she whispered later, half-growling to disguise the catch in her voice. “Come home already, you’re freaking Parker out with this disappearing act. I love you.”

By Friday morning even Steph’s unique physiognomy couldn’t disguise the effect of a string of sleepless, worried nights. She hurried into the office regardless, hoping against hope that Peggy- or Peter, or _anyone at all_ \- had heard something- and froze in her tracks when it turned out someone had.

“Tasha,” she managed, trying to smile. The FBI agent standing in the doorway of Peggy’s office was Bucky’s oldest friend, and had come through for them enough times that Hawkeye sometimes hinted broadly about saving a spot for her on the next Avengers lineup. Any hope that Agent Romanova had come with good news, however, was firmly quashed by Tasha’s grim nod.

“Stephanie. You should see this as well.”

Steph knew before anyone said a word that it had to be some kind of hostage tape, but she wasn’t sure any amount of warning could have prepared her for the sight of her partner being forced to his knees by some whackjob in a deep purple mask.

“My name is Zemo,” the guy announced. His voice was soft and considered, and Steph had a strong feeling he’d done this kind of thing before. “This message is for Captain America.”

“No,” she protested, gritting her teeth against the urge to take off immediately and never stop until she found her boy. A hideous thought stopped her cold.

“Please,” she stammered, reaching for Tasha with hands that trembled like she’d been locked in a kryptonite cage for hours on end. It had been _five days_ since she’d been able to find his heartbeat anywhere out there. “Tasha, he’s not-”

“Of course not,” Tasha hissed. She sounded impatient, not scared, but Steph hadn’t missed the way her heart-rate spiked at the thought of it. “Do you really think I’d make you watch that?”

Which only meant they hadn’t caught that part on camera, though- or that Zemo hadn’t sent that section along yet. Peggy, following the subtext, frowned at one of the technicians Tasha had brought with her.

“You’re absolutely certain this was made today?”

They were, the analyst said, and might have explained if Zemo hadn’t chosen that moment to grab Bucky roughly by his poor matted hair. Next to Steph, Tasha took a jerky step towards the screen as if she thought she could stop him if she glared hard enough.

“I’ll ask again, James. Where is the alien?”

Bucky raised an eyebrow, more irritated than intimidated; the resulting expression was so like Tasha’s most disdainful stare that both of her colleagues chuckled quietly.

“I keep saying I don’t know,” Bucky told Zola, parched and exhausted but mostly just impatient. “And it’s _Bucky_ , do you guys not get the papers way down here?”

“He does keep saying that,” Zemo allowed, then turned to deliver a vicious steel-toed kick to his prisoner’s ribs. “I’m not entirely convinced.”

“Bastard,” Peggy snarled; Steph saw Tasha nod sharply. Onscreen, Zemo spent a good few seconds watching Bucky gasp for air before facing the camera to address them directly.

“In case that is my mistake, however: I’m quite willing to make the exchange, Captain.”

“’s not gonna work,” Bucky muttered, perfectly confident. “Cap doesn’t negotiate with terrorists.”

The corner of his mouth lifted in one of his more sardonic smiles. “Or idiots, and you’re obviously-”

Even the FBI guys paled at the blow that followed.

“James,” Tasha hissed, proud and appalled at the same time. Steph already had her eyes squeezed shut, trying harder than ever to listen for any sign of him, but he just wasn’t-

“They’re underground,” she realised. “That’s why he said that thing about the paper, and that’s why-”

“The captain can’t find him,” Peggy supplied- Steph had been updating her, probably more often than necessary, on the results of ‘their’ search. “The bunkers, maybe- those are old enough to be lead-lined.”

They watched, silent and unnerved, as Bucky tried and failed to rise.

“She’s not gonna come,” he muttered, looking right into the camera as if willing them all to understand. “’s not how she works, this whole operation is a wash.”

Zemo trailed his gloved hand through Bucky’s hair with sick satisfaction.

“He’s a brave boy; I can admire that.”

He let go abruptly, leaving Bucky to sprawl on the bloodied concrete floor. “I won’t put up with it forever. You have twelve hours to consider my offer.”

The video ended there.

“I have to go,” Steph rasped, stumbling away from the furniture because she was fairly certain she’d break anything she tried to touch. “I have to-”

Tasha put her arms around her quickly.

“We’re going to find him, Stephanie.”

She gave a dangerous half-smile that made Steph very grateful Tasha was on their side. “Twelve hours is an age in FBI time.”

“I know,” Steph admitted, a little less shakily. “D’you want me to try and get hold of-”

“No.”

Tasha’s voice was close to commanding. “Like he said- we’re not playing their game.”

There was something pleading in her gaze.

“Let me take point on this, all right?”

Her manner turned brisk again as soon as Steph nodded.

“Take care of yourself,” she ordered as though it were a command Steph could be compelled to obey. “I’ll be in touch.”

“Thanks, Tasha. You too.”

She had to endure two more sympathetic hugs before she made it to the stairs. Steph was in costume by the time she reached the ground floor and in the air before anyone realised she had been there. Maybe the FBI thought they had things well in hand, but Steph knew from experience that the last thing they had was time while Bucky was locked away and picking fights with psychopaths. She headed straight for the farthest of the abandoned bunkers within the city limits, confident that Tasha would make the same connection she had, and wound her way down the darkened corridors until- finally, _finally_ , she was face to bruised and bloodied face with her boy.

“There you are,” Steph breathed, taking the door off its hinges in her relief. “Bucky, I-”

“No!”

In close to four years of foiling bank heists, meddling with mobsters and taunting madmen of all descriptions she had never seen her partner look so genuinely scared. “Get out of here, they’ve got-“

Steph turned in time to see Zemo raise a handgun; Bucky cried out again, words running together in his fear and anger. There was a flash of iridescent green, followed by a single moment, startling in its clarity, of pain in its purest form- then everything went black.


	3. Chapter 3

The first sense Steph regained, somewhat unhelpfully, was taste. She was still trying to parse the unfamiliar tang of gunpowder and blood when she realized that Bucky was holding her close, pleading with her in a frazzled whisper he probably assumed no one would hear.

“-care if you do run off with Iron Man, okay, I’m _not_ letting _Helmut Zemo_ take you from us.”

His voice was shaking, Steph thought.

“Bucky,” she murmured- or would have, if the fire flaring from her chest hadn’t robbed her of the breath that should have formed his name.

“Easy,” her partner urged, tightening his arms around Steph to steady her. He should never have been able to pin her like that, but whatever Zemo had done had left her so weak that she found herself immobile in Bucky’s careful grip. “It’s okay, it’s just me.”

Steph longed to assure him that she was well aware of that- and maybe that she’d have been much closer to real panic if it had been anyone else holding her down- but it was all she could manage just to nod. Feebly, she craned her head to try and see what it was that had to be impaling her right through the shoulder to make it burn like that. It wasn’t the best idea she’d ever had- Steph’s head was swimming before she’d raised it more than two inches.

“Hey,” Bucky protested, pulling her a little closer as she let her head loll with a gasp. “Cool your jets, will you? Even you need to take it slow after you’ve been shot by a crazy person.”

It wasn’t just his voice, Steph realized- his hands were shaking too, and it had less to do with the five  _days_ he’d been at Zemo’s mercy and more to do with how badly Steph’s injuries had scared him.

“He had-“

“Kryptonite, yeah.”

Bucky’s eyes were glassy, his jaw set- it was a soldier’s expression, Steph had decided within a few months of watching that look cross his face under the most dire circumstances. “Turns out a bullet made of that damn rock won’t shatter, though, so at least we know I got it all out, right?”

He shuddered with her, already moving to take Steph’s weight so she wouldn’t jostle her shoulder too much as she reacted.  _I love you_ , she knew better than to say while she was still dressed in the red, white and blue.

“I hate Kryptonite,” Steph grumbed instead of flustering Bucky with unwanted thanks. She was rewarded with a grateful, lopsided grin.

“I bet. You’n me both, sweetheart.”

Steph shut her eyes against a reaction to that casual endearment which would only have made sense if Bucky had been talking to her, herself, rather than her alter-ego.

“I’ll be all right,” she promised him, hoping it sounded like she was looking forward to returning to anonymous Avengers digs or regular patrol rather than curling up in Bucky’s apartment with ice cream and old movies until the whole nightmare was just another prize-winning story for Tasha to roll her eyes about. She had expected her partner to nod soberly; instead, Bucky leaned in close, still mindful of her injuries, and kissed her tenderly.

“Thank goodness for that, Steph.”

She went board-stiff in his arms. Her cowl, Steph realized belatedly, was discarded with her gloves on the ground- of course Bucky had needed to see her face while he was trying to save her life. He’d frozen with her- the mask of military calm smoothed any anxiety right out of his expression, but when he spoke again his voice was leaden.

“I’m sorry.”

He closed his eyes, exhaling slowly, and summoned a smile as he opened them again. “You thank Stark for that suit, okay? I’m pretty sure this- what _is_ it, vibranium fibre?- saved your life. How’d he even come up with that? I don't know what I’d’ve done if that bloody thing had got any further.”  

Bucky was trying to pull away without actually letting go of her, giving Steph space even as he paled at the thought of the damage Zemo could have done if not for the reinforced suit Tony had designed specifically “in case your aura ever quits, which I’m not saying it will, okay, but I don’t want to know I could have planned for that and didn’t.”

“Don’t,” Steph whispered, alarmed by the speed at which Bucky was throwing up the walls it had taken her years to wear down. She had known this was a risk, of course, but whenever she’d tried to imagine the worst-case scenario she’d always imagined Bucky reacting violently, in a burst of hurt mixed with anger rather than this quiet resignation to an end that had already come.

“Sorry,” Bucky said again. This time, he just sounded tired. “I know- this isn’t an interview, right?”

She’d said that to him as Captain America once- growled it, in fact, exasperated beyond expression because she’d snatched him from the roof of a factory mere moments before the whole thing had gone up in flames and all Bucky had wanted to talk about was how exactly she’d known where to find him, why his weight wasn’t slowing her down, and whether Iron Man had any idea why lead seemed to stop her powers cold while vibranium never interfered.

“No,” Steph objected, a little at a loss- it was unlike Bucky to misunderstand her so completely in either guise, let alone both at once. She reached for him without thinking, trying to claw back the closeness he seemed intent on denying- and fell back with a gasp as the fire in her shoulder spread down her chest and up her neck, leaving her half-blind and barely mobile. For a terrible moment she could _feel_ Bucky hesitate, but after a second he drew her close with a sigh.

“Poor thing. This is all new for you, huh.”  

He smoothed her hair back like it was natural, but the look in his sharp eyes was all wrong. “You have to stay still, okay? Just for now- you’ll feel better once we can get you some sun.”

Steph let him take her weight, leaning into Bucky’s arms partly to stop him trying to let her go.

“’m sorry,” she muttered, but his frown only deepened.

“It’s hardly your fault.”

That was true, at least, but she had expected a lot more of a reaction when Bucky found out. Unless- 

“You already knew,” she gasped. Bucky’s forehead creased as he tried to make sense of that.

“Knew what, again?”

“That I’m- I mean, you know.”

Steph glanced towards the abandoned parts of her uniform, keeping her eyes trained on the glimmering white lettering shining against rich cobalt. “Me.”  

There was a brief silence. Bucky continued to stare.

“I think you hit your head when you fell,” he decided after a moment. “Are you still feeling nauseous? Let me see your eyes for a second.”

“I’m not concussed,” Steph hissed, though her receding headache was on the point of returning with enough of a vengeance to make her wonder. “I’m tryin’a find out how _you_ found out that I’m-”

Bucky turned his head and kissed her, still gently but more insistently than earlier.

“Sorry,” he breathed against her lips; much too late, Steph realized he’d made out the approaching boot-steps in the corridor before she had. “Follow my lead, okay?”

She had just about enough time to nod, wondering what on earth Bucky had got them both into, before the door swung open to reveal that Baron Zemo had, against all the odds, somehow found a friend in the world.

“Well, well, well.”

Johann Schmidt smiled with false cordiality. “Our own Stephanie Rogers.”

His lip curled disdainfully as Bucky shifted anxiously, drawing Steph a little closer.

“And James Barnes, of course. In hindsight I shouldn’t be surprised.”


	4. Chapter 4

“I’m here,” Steph agreed, sounding way more authoritative than Bucky thought she had any right to do while he was still more or less acting as her spine. She ignored Schmidt entirely to focus on Zemo. “Let him go.”

His hands clenched involuntarily at her shoulders.

“D’you really think I’d leave you on your own with _Johann Schmidt_?”

Steph frowned, ready to argue, but Zemo spoke first.

“I assure you they won’t be alone.”

He was practically salivating. “I’ve waited a long time for this.”

“So you keep saying,” Bucky grumbled, fighting a shudder that would only make Zemo bolder. “Who the hell knows what you think _this_ is, even.”

“We had a deal,” Steph reminded Zemo as if Bucky had never said a word. Schmidt laughed with real pleasure.

“Aren’t you both precious,” he murmured. Like Zemo, he had yet to take his eyes off Stephanie’s face. “I’m afraid that deal is off, my dear. I can’t speak for my associate, but _I_ know better than to give up such effective leverage.”

There was nothing put-on about the disbelieving laughter that bubbled past Bucky’s lips without his permission.

“She’s barely mobile,” he protested, ignoring the way his voice shook at the thought of it. “What _leverage_ can you possibly need? Pair of freaking brain donors, I think there’s more of her blood on me than in her.”

Steph tensed as Zemo lunged, but Schmidt caught his arm before he could so much as aim the blow.

“Enough,” he barked. “Our guest is entitled to his views.”

Bucky raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“Since when?”

Steph elbowed him sharply. Bucky ducked his head to kiss her temple before remembering that he’d promised himself he wouldn’t do that anymore.

“Sorry,” he muttered instead. Stephanie shut her eyes for a second, but when she opened them it was to seek Schmidt’s eyes instead of Bucky’s.

“What is it you want?”

“A partnership,” Schmidt smiled before Zemo could start going on about the experiments he’d been bending Bucky’s ear describing for the better part of a week. Stephanie scowled.

“I’ve already got a partner, boss.”

“I see that,” Schmidt acknowledged with a cruel grin. “If you want to keep him you’ll listen to my terms.”

Steph pulled away a little so she could sit up on her own. It took all the self-control Bucky had ever had, and maybe more than that, to stay where he was instead of lunging after her or refusing to let go.

“Or what?”

Schmidt’s expression hardened.

“Or I’ll have no vested interest in keeping either of you alive, and Zemo may well get his dissection after all.”

They’d only have one shot, Bucky knew.

“Wait, wait.”

His eyes were as wide as he could make them, his voice faint and disturbed as he made a show of glancing from Schmidt to Zemo and back again. “Did you say _dissection_?”

Bucky took a ragged breath, focusing on Schmidt, not least because it was hard to maintain eye contact with a guy who had a sock over most of his face. “You don’t really believe my Steph is Captain America? _This_ little girl?”

She had gone stiff in his arms, still sick and stressed but now also at a loss as to what he thought he was doing. Bucky tucked her closer, just in case, and only realized he’d already broken his new resolution after he’d pressed an apologetic kiss to her cheek.

“Shows what I know,” he muttered, shrugging as if at his own hopelessness. “I know the sockman’s a psycho, but I never thought _you_ ’d go for this Patroclus thing.”

He tilted his head at Steph like he was trying to see her from Schmidt’s point of view.

“You two’ve met, what, six times by now? You gotta know this one’s nowhere near six two even in those crazy heels.”

In point of fact no one had ever claimed that Cap was six foot anything, but Schmidt’s eyes were narrowed even before Zemo cleared his throat uncomfortably. As Bucky watched, one of his hands flexed as if he was trying to decide who to strangle first.

“I want her on her feet, now.”

Bucky glared for all he was worth.

“Me too. Be easier if your flunkie hadn’t-“

Zemo lunged, but Schmidt caught his arm again.

“Control yourself,” he growled. “Did you even consider that it might be a ruse?”

Bucky almost wished he could have seen the so-called Baron’s face.

“She tore through that door as if it was paper.”

Thank goodness Zemo had decided it would be less trouble to replace the door rather than have his prisoners moved. Bucky shook his head dismissively.

“Prewar fixings- we bust into all kinds of places thanks to those old things.”

Steph still looked mostly stricken, so Bucky bent his head to catch her eye.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, hoping it wasn’t the only thing she’d remember in his voice if things went wrong and Schmidt let Zemo snap his neck after all. “It was a good trick, okay, but I’m not gonna let these jokers cut you up thinking you’re some kind of alien.”

Schmidt didn’t even bother to respond- he was already staring Zemo down with murder in his cold eyes. The baron gestured angrily between his captives.

“But- the kryptonite! He was frantic-“

“Because you shot her!”

The tremour in Bucky’s voice was mortifyingly real too. “Coulda been hard candy for all the difference it would’ve-”

He fell silent as his partner’s fingers brushed his cheek.

“‘m okay.”

Bucky lost the fight against a brief, painful bark of laughter.

“Liar,” he accused her tenderly. “You’re a crazy person, is what you are.”

They stilled, together, at the sound of another gun being cocked.

“On your feet,” Schmidt ordered, cold as ice. “Both of you.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow. 

"We taking a trip or something?" 

It turned out that they were. The journey to the roof of the abandoned military store connected to the bunker was arduous as much because Stephanie was still weak and disoriented as because they couldn’t afford to let the other two realise how Zemo’s kryptonite bullets were affecting her even from the barrel of his gun.

“You’re okay,” Bucky whispered, still mostly holding her up as they navigated the stairs. They’d be in the open soon, he hoped, so there was every reason to hope that the sun would do Steph some good sooner rather than later. She tilted her head to glare at him.

“When _I_ said that you called me crazy.”

Bucky grunted as Zemo’s gun dug into his ribs.

“Shut up,” the baron ground out, not at all amused. “Move.”

Schmidt led them right to the edge of the roof before wrestling Stephanie roughly out of Bucky’s grip. Zemo wasted no time in urging Bucky up onto the parapet.

“No,” Steph growled, struggling vainly in Schmidt’s relentless grip. “No, no, you-”

“You want us to believe that this is all a case of… mistaken identity.”

Steph was shaking her head violently, but Bucky nodded as calmly as he could.

“Well, then.”

Zemo’s gun dug into Bucky’s ribs a second time, forcing him another inch or two towards the long, long drop in front of him. “You have about three seconds to convince us.”

“Please,” Stephanie whispered. “Don’t, he’s-”

“Perhaps you’re right,” Schmidt nodded briskly. “He does have a very vexing tendency to put himself in danger to protect the women in his life, doesn’t he?”

He fixed Bucky with a look of pure malice.

“As I said- three seconds, give or take.”

He gave no further warning before turning, still smiling coldly, and flinging Stephanie bodily over the edge.


	5. Chapter 5

“No! No, Steph-”

She was too far away for Bucky to do anything but claw at the empty air between them. His vision was greying at the edges and his heart thumping somewhere behind his eyes, but all he could think was that he’d never, ever, been so grateful to make out the metallic purr of Iron Man’s repulsors in action.

“Gotcha,” Steph’s teammate muttered, scooping her out of the air in one perfectly calculated move. Bucky felt his knees go weak with relief as Steph put her arms around Stark's shoulders and held on. He was still staring when Zemo turned on him with a snarl of pure rage.

“You! How did you-”

The baron lunged, and for a moment Bucky was sure they were both going to go over the edge. Zemo was more agile than Bucky had expected, though, and twisted at the last second to drag him to one side instead. He attacked viciously, using his pistol like a club instead of an actual gun- Bucky reared backwards to avoid the blow. His every instinct was screaming for a real fight at last, but he’d hardly even found his footing when Zemo dropped with a ragged scream, clutching at his arm and staring disbelievingly over Bucky’s shoulder.

“You were right,” Schmidt decided, catching Bucky’s eye instead of condescending to look at his masked associate. “He really is more of a liability than anything else.”

Zemo contested that assessment hotly, but Bucky found he had to pay more attention to the still-warm muzzle of Schmidt’s gun, now singeing his own shirt as Schmidt forced him back towards the door.

“Where're we going now?”

The HYDRA boss leered.

“I’m not done with you yet."

“Lucky me,” Bucky muttered; he swallowed a gasp as Schmidt jabbed his gun into an already open wound.

“You won’t be so glib when I’ve-“

“Let him go, Schmidt.”

Both Schmidt and Zemo froze- and they weren’t the only ones. The Scarlet Witch didn’t look very much like Steph, really- her eyes weren’t even blue, for one thing- but once she was floating some twelve storeys off the ground, wrapped in the stars and stripes and glaring for all she was worth from under the familiar leather cowl, the total effect was pretty damn persuasive.

“Making me look bad,” Bucky muttered; the substitute captain landed lightly, only feet away. “I told these guys there was no way you’d come to their party.”

“You said I wouldn’t play along,” the Scarlet Witch corrected him in what she seemed to think was an approximation of Steph’s voice. “As it happens, I’m not in the mood for games.”

Zemo, however, still had his pistol clutched in his good hand.

“I’m not playing anymore, Captain.”

He fired twice- but Schmidt’s triumphant leer froze on his face as their intended victim caught the bullets as easily as if they’d been playing catch in the park.

“We’ve been over this,” she observed cheerfully, flashing a toothy smile in Bucky’s direction before crushing the kryptonite bullets to dust in one red-gloved fist. “Faster than a speeding bullet, remember? Even the ones that clash with my outfit.”

Bucky wished fervently that he could see Zemo gaping behind his mask.

“Idiot,” Schmidt hissed, turning on his ally with hate in his eyes. “This is _your-“_

“I’ll take that,” the Scarlet Witch told him, snatching both men’s guns out of their hands in a burst of superhuman- if not quite Kryptonian- speed. She set them down on the parapet, twisted beyond use. “Let’s go, gentlemen.”

She turned to study Bucky’s face, watching him with obvious concern as the other two struggled in her iron grip.

“Wait here, all right? I’ll be back as soon as I’ve dealt with these two.”

“Unnecessary,” another voice announced. Bucky whirled in time to see Tasha’s colleagues emerge behind her in a swarm of black. “This one’s coming with me.”

She touched his arm, just lightly, assuring him that she was really there.

“All right, Barnes?”

Bucky scowled, just for her.

“’Course. You guys get lost along the way or what?”

Tasha shrugged.

“Stopped for coffee, got my nails touched up, you know how it is.”

She caught the eye of her nearest subordinate. “Stay with the Captain. I want these men in _our_ custody until further notice.”

She waited for the formal acknowledgement, then offered the Scarlet Witch a solemn nod of her own.

“Our thanks as always.”

The superhero smiled.

“My pleasure, Agent Romanova.”

She caught Bucky’s eye again. “And James, of course. I’ll see you soon.”

Trying not to wonder whether that was really true, Bucky offered her the three-fingered salute that always made Steph smile. He let Tasha shepherd him towards the stairs, reflecting a little hazily that it was much more pleasant without the use of deadly force. They had barely reached the first landing on the stairs when Natasha stopped dead so she could pull him into a crushing hug.

“Five _days_ ,” she muttered, clinging hard enough to make Bucky wonder vaguely whether she had super-strength as well. “If you do this to me again I’m going to put a tracker in your ass no matter how many laws it breaks.”

“Lots,” Bucky decided after a second’s consideration. “Does it have to be my ass specifically or can you be convinced to take an arm instead?”

“Wuss,” Tasha complained, but there was a vulnerability in her eyes that Bucky hadn’t seen in years. “Bucky, thank _God_ you’re all right.”

He caught her hand and held it tight.

“Thanks to you.”

“It was _your_ plan,” Tasha reminded him, shaking her head like she was still surprised any part of it had worked. “Which everyone knows, obviously, because I wasn’t going to let anyone I work with think it was _my_ idea.”

“Logical,” Bucky agreed mildly, then gave up on trying to show any kind of restraint. “Listen, is she-“

“With her team. They’re happy for us to join them once you’ve-“

“No.”

For once, Tasha’s surprise was plain on her face. He’d never told her, Bucky realized suddenly- maybe he could be forgiven considering the week that had gone by since that disastrous proposal, but somehow he’d forgotten that there were things Natasha Romanova didn’t know without being told. He scrubbed his hand over his face, trying to buy time, but it wasn’t enough: he just didn’t have the words. “She’ll come home when she’s ready, right?”

Tasha squeezed the hand still clasped in hers.

“Did something happen?”

He couldn’t even look at her.

“Before or after she nearly got killed because I went and-“

“You can’t seriously think any of this is your fault.”

Bucky shook his head helplessly, too drained even to argue.

“Later, Tasha, okay?”

He could practically feel the weight of her assessing gaze, but all she did was kiss his cheek before slinging her free arm around his waist to keep him close.

“Okay. I’ve got you, Yasha moy.”

That made him smile- Tasha hadn’t called him that in years. Bucky slumped against her, just a little.

“My hero,” he whispered with his cheek against her hair. Tasha reached up to flick his ear, but took his weight without complaint.

“Don’t forget it. Come on, soldier- let’s get you home.”

Bucky nodded, mostly because it was easier than trying to articulate his skepticism that there could be anything like ‘home’ for him while the girl he loved was in Gotham City, safer in Iron Man's metal arms than she had ever been with him.


	6. Chapter 6

For the second time in two days, Steph came to feeling like her head was stuffed with cotton and her heart was thudding halfway up her windpipe.

“Hey,” she heard someone say encouragingly, but it wasn’t Bucky. “You’re just fine, Steph, okay?”

Someone else was holding her hand, she realized, but that wasn’t Bucky either.

She’d left him alone on that roof with two murderous lunatics, and now her team was gathered around her with Tony talking low and slow while Hawkeye clutched at her hand like he was afraid she’d disappear if he let go.

“No,” Steph whispered, eyes flying open as the blood drained from her face. “No, he can’t be-“

Barton let go of her hand to hug her tight.

“He’s fine,” he promised, so confidently that Steph dared to breathe again. “Wanda stopped them before it got ugly.”

“Uglier,” Tony put in from over Clint’s shoulder, smiling sympathetically when Steph looked his way. “Your scary ex-Russian chick took him home herself, I promise. There’s hardly a scratch on him you don’t already know about.”

That meant Tony had talked to Natasha, at least.

“They know I’m here? With you guys, I mean.”

“Of course,” Clint murmured, adjusting Steph’s blanket like he thought he had to prove the Avengers’ vigilance to her. Steph nodded, watching her own fingers trace the edge of the blanket so she wouldn’t have to look at anyone else.

“Didn’t he want to-“

She let her voice trail off, not entirely sure what the rest of her question was. Maybe it didn’t matter- apparently Bucky didn’t want to see her _or_ talk about any part of the previous week. Maybe he didn’t want to deal with her at all, ever again, and was hoping she’d just take the hint and stay in Gotham. Tony glowered.

“Or the hard-ass with the pistols decided she wanted him to rest before coming all the way out here, maybe?”

Clint nodded eagerly, but nothing Steph had ever seen in Bucky Barnes suggested that he’d have let anyone stop him from getting to her if it was what he really wanted. With some difficulty, she dragged herself upright.

“Something’s wrong. I have to talk to him.”

Clint frowned, wrapping a hand around her forearm to steady her.

“You can talk to him in the morning. It’s been a hell of a day and a half, Steph.”

She wrenched free of his gentle grip with a harsher glare than she normally used on her teammates.

“That's what I thought last time.”

She hardly had to tell him how that had worked out. Tony sighed.

“Let me take you, okay?”

“You don’t have to do that.“

“I’m pretty sure I do. If you crash-land in some field between here and there because I let you fly before you were recovered we’ll be responsible for who knows how much corn that will never grow, and when that kid finds out it happened on my watch he’ll cut my eyes out and give them to his bodyguard for earrings.”

“You have weirdly specific visions of disaster,” Clint complained, but smiled as he pulled Steph into another quick embrace. “Tell Barnes ‘feel better’ from the rest of us, okay?”

She would, Steph promised- assuming he’d see her at all.

“I’ll tell Natasha you said hi too, okay?”

Tony offered her a gauntleted high-five before holding out his arms so she could settle carefully against him.

“Hang on tight, okay?”

“Yeah,” Clint chimed in as he recovered his composure. “Imagine what ‘that kid’ will do if he drops you!”

Tony’s muttering was muted by his suit, but the metal hand gave Hawkeye his response as effectively as the flesh one under it.

“Tony,” Steph grumbled, smacking his helmet in reproach; she was pretty sure both men knew it was the closest they’d come to making her smile yet.

She made Tony set her down some distance from her goal- the last thing on earth they needed was for half of Gotham’s resident crazies to join most of Metropolis’s in trying to use Bucky Barnes as some kind of lodestone for superhero activity. He let her convince him, possibly for fear that ‘the kid’ would somehow find out from his apartment and take Steph’s side with the assault rifle Tony seemed to think Bucky kept on his person at all times.

“I’ll be fine, okay?”

He winked, trusting her to see it through his helmet.

“Sure you will, you’re Captain America.”

His eyes were gentle behind Iron Man’s stoic mask. “Yell if you need us, okay? Any time.”

Steph smiled more bravely than she felt, and said she would even though there was no way the Avengers would be able to get her what she needed if Bucky wanted nothing more to do with her. She was a little startled, though not exactly surprised, to find Natasha Romanova waiting for her at the foot of the stairs.

“Stephanie,” she smiled, not quite warmly. “It’s good to see you back on your feet.”

“Thanks,” Steph muttered awkwardly. She’d never been much good at reading Natasha, partly because Bucky was usually there to do it for her and partly because she never quite knew what to make of the other woman in her partner’s life, but she was pretty sure she wasn’t imaging the worry in the other woman’s eyes. She closed her own eyes, steeling herself. “How mad is he?”    

A flicker of surprise crossed Natasha’s face before the mask of calm resumed.

“I don’t think he’s _angry_.”

Hurt, then, or worse than that- and who could blame him? Steph nodded unhappily.

“I- should I not have come?”

It had been years since that had ever been a question, but maybe things were different now. Tasha tossed her head impatiently.

“He’ll want to see you,” she said too shortly for Steph to think it was completely true. To her surprise, Natasha fished Bucky’s spare key out of her purse and offered it to her.

“Aren’t you coming up?“

Natasha shook her head.

“You two need to talk.”

That much was true- it was why Steph had come, after all- but somehow she hadn’t expected that it would be just the two of them right away. Natasha stayed where she was, watching Steph ascend the stairs with the detached curiosity of a long-time surveillance expert. Steph turned the key, hoping against all hope that she wasn’t about to open that particular door for the last time.

“What’d you forget? I told you, the-“

She heard Bucky’s poor heart skip a beat as he realized Natasha hadn’t come back for anything. “Hey.”

He looked so much better than when she’d seen him last- Natasha must have insisted on getting him real medical attention, and then a good deal more serious rest than Bucky would have got without Tasha standing over him the whole time.

“Hi,” Steph whispered, suddenly shy. Bucky offered her a half-smile that was somehow both guarded and concerned.

“You come all the way from Gotham on your own?”

Steph shook her head.

“Iron Man gave me a lift.”

It was like someone had switched a light off somewhere behind his eyes.

“Of course he did.”

His voice was all wrong, hollow and sardonic like it hadn’t been in years. “Didn’t he want to come say hi?”

Steph tilted her head, trying uneasily to read between the lines.

“Did you…want him to come say hi?”

Bucky glanced away, biting his lip like he wished he could take back what he’d said. Steph hoped he wasn’t also wishing he’d realized it was her in time to shut the door in her face. “He’s looking after you okay, though, right?”

He was getting ready to give her back, she thought irrationally- once he knew Tony and the others could handle her Bucky would have no reason not to cut all ties and get back to the kind of life he’d be able to enjoy without Captain America’s many enemies doing everything in their power to make him miserable on account of a partner who didn’t even deserve his trust to begin with.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, afraid even to look at him. “You gotta know I never meant to-“

Her voice cracked; Bucky caught her hand.

“Don’t, sweet girl.”

She couldn’t help the sob that escaped when Bucky cringed like he hadn’t meant to call her that. When he sighed, just quietly, she could _hear_ how badly his ribs must still be hurting him.

“Bucky-“

“No.”

That was his military voice- the one he only used when he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get the words out otherwise. She squeezed his hand to promise him that she would listen; his lips turned up, just a little, before he went on. “It's not like I don't wish it were me, okay? But if Stark’s what you need then you should know you never have to-“

“What?”

They stared at each other for a second, then Bucky’s expression settled somewhere between exasperated and defiant.

“You guys realise that everyone in Gotham City knows Tony Stark is Iron Man, right?”

“No!”

Steph frowned. “I mean, that’s true, but-“

He was scowling now, glaring hard at his own floorboards.

“At least the helmet keeps that smug stupid grin under wraps, I guess, but-“

“Bucky!”

“Sorry,” he muttered, subdued now. He was still staring at the ground. “I’m sorry, that was so out of line.”

That wasn’t really what Steph had meant at all. She caught her partner’s shoulders gently, breathing a silent prayer of thanks when he didn’t jerk away at once. Steph searched Bucky’s face for any sign of what he was thinking, but all she found was the same exhausted, affectionate determination from before.

“Bucky,” she tried again, reaching up to brush his fringe out of his eyes so she could see him properly. He stilled under her hands, and Steph felt her heart seize at the thought that he might be afraid. He never so much as flinched, though, watching her quietly like he’d stay there however long she made him and count it as some kind of penance. “Honey, what on Earth does Iron Man have to do with anything?”


	7. Chapter 7

Cautiously, Bucky let his hands come up to settle at his partner’s waist. It wasn’t that he expected Iron Man to blast a hole through his living room wall and snatch her back, exactly, but he was still faintly relieved when all that happened was that Stephanie collapsed against him with a sigh that had almost certainly started out as his name.  

“Right here,” Bucky promised, hardly daring to believe it himself. That  _she_ was there seemed like much more of a miracle- less than a full day earlier she’d been rag-limp in his arms, about as far from fine as anyone could be. And that had been  _before_ Schmidt’s bright idea on the roof. Taking a calculated risk, Bucky bent his head to kiss Steph’s wind-tousled hair like he kept vowing and then failing not to do. Deciding it was better to know for sure, either way, he took a breath and went for it. “I guess you’re  _not_ here to let me down easy so you can get back to Gotham with th-“

“What? No!”

Steph’s response was immediate, explosive- her head snapped up so fast that Bucky threw one hand up in a reflexive effort to protect her neck from the consequences. She looked more shocked by half than when they’d first discovered Kryptonite- whatever she had been bracing herself for, Bucky saw, that wasn’t it. “Of course I’d never- me and- is  _that_  what you thought?”

Before Bucky could find any kind of verbal response, her expression changed again.

“ _That’s_  why you weren’t in Gotham today.”  

Bucky gave a half-hearted sort of shrug, letting his eyes slide away from hers so he was studying her hand on his shoulder instead of her face.  

“Guess I thought you guys’d want some time alone, you know?”

“Idiot,” Steph hissed, then prevented Bucky from defending himself by covering his mouth with hers in a kiss that was equal parts needy and insistent. She was trembling with emotion by then, clinging to him fiercely as she smiled through her tears. “Time alone with- you complete ass, I really thought that monster had shot you in the head or something.”

She smiled through her tears, pressing closer to bury her face in the crook of his neck.

“Leave you for Tony,” she whispered scornfully, letting one hand wander up Bucky’s neck to play with his hair. “You gotta know I’d never, Buck.”

She seemed to lose her nerve, though, as their eyes met again. “Unless you want me to, I mean.”

Bucky dipped his head to steal another kiss, feeling for the first time since Steph had pressed his mother’s ring back into his hands like it might not be the last.

“Were you not paying attention when I asked you to be my wife or what?”

Two things surprised him- that the accusation he had thought he meant jokingly came out much more hurt than teasing, and that Steph’s eyes filled with fresh tears at once.

“I should have told you,” she whispered. “Right from the start, maybe, but at first I couldn’t just blurt it out, and then there always seemed to be something we had to get done first, and then you- I mean-  I know it doesn’t help much, or at all, but-“

“Listen,” Bucky broke in, taking her elbows to offer some support because she was clutching at his shoulders like she thought they were a door she had to hinge. “I love you, Steph Rogers, okay, but I have no idea what you’re tryin’a tell me here.”

Her frantic expression gentled a little, but Steph only nodded tersely before trying again.

“I’m Captain America,” she said, slowly and deliberately like it was the first part of a twelve-step programme or something. Bucky nodded encouragingly.

“I know. I gave you that name, remember?”

It was immediately apparent that she didn’t- Stephanie’s grip on Bucky’s shoulders went slack as her eyes found his again.

“What?”

Bucky offered her a crooked smile.

“Can I get three cheers for Captain America over here or what, huh?”

It had been more than six years since he’d said that- exhausted, dehydrated and not at all convinced he wasn’t seeing things- but it wasn’t the kind of memory that seemed likely to fade. Bucky had glanced away from his guys, not one of them less drunk on disbelieving relief than he was, to find the stranger who’d obliterated a bomb in front of their very eyes standing a little ways away, still hanging onto the ragged flag she’d picked up from where it had fallen. She hadn’t had the outfit yet, obviously, just a pair of motorcycle goggles that hid half her face, but it was the wistful curve of her lips that had got right under Bucky’s skin. The others had taken up the cheer at once, as he’d known they would, and Bucky had promised himself, right from that first startled smile, that he’d do what he had to so she never looked so completely alone again.

Steph raised one hand to frame his face.

“That was you.”

Somehow, it had never occurred to Bucky that she hadn’t realized. Suddenly, her disoriented muttering in that cell made a lot more sense.

“Did you think I was just now figuring it out?”

Steph nodded slowly, just short of slack-jawed.

“You said ‘I’m a big fan.’ I thought you meant of my writing, Buck.”

“That too,” Bucky offered, just a little sheepishly. It had been so clear to him that it really had never occurred to him that she hadn't made the same connection- though of course even Tasha insisted he looked like someone else entirely without the buzz-cut and fatigues he'd all too gladly left behind. “I don’t think I coulda found you any other way, you know.”

She looked even more confused, if that was at all possible.

“I never wrote one word about Captain America before you showed up.”

“Sure, but you always got the dish on the Avengers before anyone else, right? Even before you guys were an outfit your Iron Man always came to you before the _Gazette_ and he _owns_ that rag.”

Steph was looking at him like she’d never seen his face before.

“You never said a word. Even when it’s just the two of us you always call me Cap when I’m-”

She gestured fleetingly at her torso, apparently indicating the outfit she wasn’t wearing. “You know.”

“I kinda thought you knew, Steph.”

She’d never said a word either- which made sense now he knew she’d thought she was keeping her secret from him. “If you wanted to leave that stuff in the field once you got home I wasn’t gonna be the one to wreck it.”

He knew what that was like, at least. Steph shifted in his arms so she could rest her cheek against his shoulder.

“I had no idea,” she whispered. “Sometimes I wondered, but you never said a word, and- wait. Did you leave the army to come find me?”

Bucky cringed, but Steph didn’t sound too much like she thought it was the same kind of creepy fixation as Zemo’s.

“Not really,” he offered weakly. “Mostly I left because Tasha said she’d stab me if I got shot again.”

Steph’s laughter was watery but affectionate.

“Thank goodness for your Tasha.”

The look in her eyes was close to wondering. “Have you two been keeping the _FBI_ off my case as well as everything else?”

“I didn’t have to do anything. You know what that’s girl’s like.”

Stephanie pressed a kiss, feather-light, to his collarbone.

“I know what you’re like too. You’ve been covering for me this whole time.”

Bucky grinned in spite of himself.

“Someone had to do it. Remember your ‘cheese of the month’ club? You work with _Peggy Carter_ , Steph.”

“Shut up,” she ordered, much more affectionate than sharp. There were still tears in her eyes. “Bucky Barnes, sometimes I just don’t know what to do with you.”

“That’s easy,” he said brightly, not really thinking of anything beyond the fact that Steph was safe and smiling in his arms, _not_ in love with Iron Man at all, and looking at him with such obvious longing that it didn’t even feel like any kind of risk. “First you take this damn ring back, right, then you marry me, Steph Rogers, so we can-“

She never said a word, but kissed him hard enough, and for long enough, that Bucky was pretty sure it counted.


	8. Chapter 8

“Why are these creeps always from Gotham?”

Hawkeye bent to collect another of the so-called mystic rings their prisoner had been after, tucking it gingerly into a bag Wanda promised would contain whatever power it might or might not have.  “I know Star City has its share of crazies, right, and you guys have that billionaire crime boss who hates you personally, but somehow when it’s clockwork bombs or sentient plants or magic damn jewellery they  _always_ come from Gotham City.”

“Play nice,” Steph cautioned, mostly to stop Tony from retaliating at Hawkeye’s expense while he needed to concentrate on leading the Mandarin away at repulsor-point. “Not that I don’t see your point, I mean.”

Tony pulled a face that only she could see, but his gauntlet never wavered. Clint shook his head.

“I notice he never gives _you_ the- hey, no one told _me_ we were bringing dates to this shindig.”

"Like you could get a date," Tony muttered, but quietly. "And as if that kid has ever waited for an invitation in all the time we've known him."

" _Guys_ ," Steph groused, but she was already drifting over towards the dark head that had caught Hawkeye’s attention. “Give me a second, okay?”

Bucky straightened as she landed next to him.

“Hey.”

His smile was easy, but his eyes were alert. "You okay? I know about you and the whole magic thing."

"I'm fine," Steph promised. Feeling suddenly lighthearted, she put both hands on her hips and let her expression harden into a scowl.

“I know you know this place is off limits to civilians.”

Whatever she had been expecting, it wasn’t for Bucky to raise his eyes, expression turning suddenly smouldering as his voice dropped.

“You gonna take me in, Cap?”

Steph choked. 

“Bucky! What-"

But he was laughing already, grinning at her with the pure, unguarded affection she’d only ever known with him.

“You’re so pretty when you can’t decide whether to kick me or-“

Steph darted forward, surprising him with a tiny burst of superspeed so she could pin her brand-new husband, just carefully, against the wall of the shed behind him.

“Or what, exactly, d’you imagine?”

He smirked at her, not at all intimidated.

“You tell me.”

The challenge in his eyes was everything Steph wanted, and more than she’d ever dared to hope for. She leaned in to whisper, close enough to make him shiver.

“Maybe I’ll show you instead.”

He licked his lips unconsciously.

“Maybe you should.”

“You definitely shouldn't.”

The unanticipated mechanised voice made them both jump; Steph spun in position, keeping Bucky behind her even though she knew Tony would never hurt him. “Do _not_ show him anything like that where the rest of us might have to see it.”

She felt Bucky tense, irritated.

“No one’s asking you to stick around, pal.”

“Kid has a point,” Hawkeye offered, grinning at Bucky over Iron Man’s shoulder. “We’re done here, aren't we?”

Steph glanced past them to Tony’s jet, inside which Wanda and the others were still standing over their captive.

“You’ll take him back to Arkham?”

Iron Man nodded, but Steph could see the worried crease in Tony’s brow behind the mask.

“For now.”

She patted his gauntleted arm.

“You’ll figure something out. Yell if you need backup, all right?”

“Sure. Look after yourself, Cap.”

“You too, Iron Man. Hawkeye.”

Clint offered her a salute which seemed to get more formal as he met Bucky’s eyes too. Steph stayed where she was until Clint was safely in the cockpit of Stark’s jet. Iron Man offered them a final, gleaming wave before firing his jetboots. She couldn’t help giggling at the grudging look Bucky hadn’t quite managed to wipe from his expression by the time she turned.

“What, Buck?”

“Look after yourself,” her partner growled, low and robotic in mockery of Tony’s modulated voice. “What the hell does he think you do when he’s not-“

She kissed him then, slow and soft because they were completely alone in a secure area, and because even Captain America got tired of being patient and responsible some of the time.

“You’re so pretty when you’re jealous about nothing.”

She raised a hand to comb his hair back, out of his eyes so she could see him properly. “You know there’s no reason, though, right?”

Bucky caught her wrist, lowering her hand so he could kiss her knuckles. Steph was pretty sure it wasn’t any kind of accident that his lips brushed her finger just where his mother’s ring was resting under her bright glove.

“I guess I do. Let’s go home, huh?”

Steph smirked as she stepped back to give Bucky room to move.

“Why, have you already run out of places to go where you could be arrested or killed just for turning up?”

Bucky glowered, but put his arms around her so he could hold Steph close and trust her to take care of their relationship with gravity.

“Says the girl who got hit in the face with half a freight train last week.”

Steph kissed his neck by way of apologizing- she’d been fine, of course, but she’d seen his face right after.

“Invulnerable aura, remember?"

Her husband held her gaze as she took them off the ground. Steph let her smile widen into another teasing smirk. “Plus, _someone’s_ gotta keep this city safe- what the hell is your excuse?”

He grinned the same impossible grin that had shattered Steph’s whole paradigm so many years before.

“Someone’s gotta get the story while you're mucking about with these punks.”

“You’re an idiot,” Steph decided, but cuddled him close all the same. “Don’t you dare let go.”

He kissed her neck.

“Never, sweetheart.”

And maybe she did tighten her arms around him, and yank him high, high up above the clouds so she could kiss him insistently, but if he gasped her name as he slid his hands into her hair, tugging her cowl back so he could see her the way only he ever had, Steph figured they could trust the sky to keep their secrets. The journalists in attendance, after all, had much, much better things to do than worry about calling in the story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay the end! I have had a lot of fun working on just one thing, thanks very much to everyone who has been along for the ride especially avengerwrangler who has totally made sure I knew I wasn't just talking to myself which was v kind!! hee.


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